It’s grant crunch time, as the submission deadline for revised R01s is July 5. However, in a classic example of how electronic filing has actually made things more difficult, the grant has to be done and at the university grant office a week before the deadline if it is to be uploaded in time. So, my beloved Orac-philes, I’m afraid it’s reruns one last time today, but, benevolent blogger that I am, I’ll again post two on the same topic. As regular readers know, I’ve had a long history of combatting Holocaust denial online, but I also have a real problem when the price of combatting Holocaust denial is suppressing free speech. For those of you who recall Bishop Richard Williamson, who was recently busted for Holocaust denial in an interview, I just realized that his trial in Germany is due to start on July 4. So I thought I’d repost a couple of posts I wrote around the time it all happened, back in 2009. Remember, if you haven’t been reading at least two years, it’s new to you! And, who knows? Maybe I’ll blog about the trial next week, too, which would make this a nice way to bring everyone back up to speed.

I detest Holocaust denial.

Relative newbies who haven’t been reading this blog that long may be wondering why I, a physician, booster of science-based medicine, and scourge of the anti-vaccine movement (well, at least in my mind, anyway) would blog about Holocaust denial, but in actuality my interest in combatting Holocaust denial predates my interest in combatting quackery by at least two years. Indeed, one of my earliest long-form posts for this blog, written more than a year before I joined ScienceBlogs and reposted after I joined relates how I discovered Holocaust denial, my confusion and revulsion upon that discovery, and how I became involved in refuting it. Although these days I don’t write about it as often as I used to, I’ve never lost my interest in it and have still on occasion done rather lengthy posts on it. And it can’t be said often enough: Holocaust denial derives from either anti-Semitism, Hitler admiration or apologia, or both. Always. After all, as I’ve echoed a Usenet regular named Allan Matthews, whoonce asked so brilliantly:

See, you’d think that after many months of posting this at least one revisionist who isn’t a neo-Nazi or anti-Semite would have come forward and said “Here I am!”
But, no. It appears that there just aren’t any such revisionists around.

Based on their past posting history, the few bozos who have bothered to claim that they aren’t neo-Nazis or anti-Semites were, upon examination of their claims, found to be clearly lying. Of course, given the general behavior of revisionists, this lack of honesty isn’t surprising in the least.

However, just in case some revisionist ‘scholars’ have missed my question to date, here it is again:

Where are the revisionists who aren’t neo-Nazis or anti-Semites?

It’s a fair question. After all, how can revisionists hope to be taken seriously if they all have such apparent biases, agendas and axes to grind?

So, then, if Holocaust revisionism is an intellectually honest endeavor, where are the revisionists who aren’t neo-Nazis or anti-Semites?

I have never found such a Holocaust “revisionist.”
So, make no mistake, I get it. I get that Holocaust denial is a vile, racist, and bigoted conspiracy theory that denigrates the murder of approximately six million people. I agree that it should be opposed wherever possible. Why else would I have spent so much effort combatting Holocaust denial online over the last decade? It also fits right into my skeptical activism as an example of pseudohistory, paranoid conspiracy theories, and outright abuses of science and methods of historical investigation, making it a classic example to use to teach critical thinking skills. However, as much as I despise Holocaust denial, I value free speech, because it is the wellspring from which all of our other political freedoms flow. Democracy is meaningless without a high degree of freedom of speech, and enshrining freedom of speech in the Bill or Rights, where transient legislators can’t easily mess with it and it requires a Constitutional Amendment to change, was arguably one of the most brilliant strokes of genius by our Founding Fathers. Yes, no freedom is absolute, but the ideal is to place as few limits on freedom of speech as possible.

British Holocaust-denying bishop Richard Williamson faces trial in Germany for an outspoken TV interview in which he denied that the wartime extermination of the Jews took place.

The ultra-conservative Catholic cleric was hit with a fine of nearly £12,000 today by a court for his comments made to a Swedish television interviewer – but he refused to pay it.

Because Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany – and because he gave the interview while on German soil – he was prosecuted in Regensburg, near to the birthplace of Pope Benedict XVI, where he gave the interview.

Under the German legal system, he was served with an ‘order of punishment’ informing him of the penalty.

Such orders are intended to cut down on bureaucracy and costs if both sides agree with the fine, which also would mean a criminal conviction.

But Williamson did not agree. He is to appeal, paving the way for a full hearing which could prove highly embarrassing for the church once more – even though Williamson can absent himself from proceedings to be represented just by his lawyer.

We’ve met Bishop Williamson before. Early this year, he gave an interview with Swiss television filled with the most blatant Holocaust denial I’ve heard in a long time, spewing a number of denier canards so mind-bogglingly easy to refute that I wondered if Williamson had even learned Holocaust denial 101. The reason Williamson came into such prominence because of his interview was that, in an EPIC FAIL of unbelievably bad timing, Pope Benedict XVI had opened the way to the reinstatement of Williamson and other bishops who had been excommunicated by Pope John Paul II for rejecting Vatican II, among other things. Shortly after the announcement, Williamson’s Holocaust-denying interview aired. Ultimately, in an equally EPIC FAIL of closing the barn door after the horses have left, the Vatican demanded that Williamson recant his Holocaust denial. Ultimately, Williamson gave a classic “non-apology” apology, which was rejected by the Vatican. Meanwhile, Argentina, embarrassed by the whole affair, kicked Williamson out the country, and he was forced to return to England. There, he was met by met by Michele Renouf, a former model known for her Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, with whom he had been put in touch by fellow holocaust denier David Irving. Worse, Williamson had apparently been in contact with David Irving for advice on how to “present” his views, which is akin to asking the an anti-vaccinationist to how to “present” vaccine science. As an excuse, Bishop Williamson’s was one of the weakest I’ve heard:

Williamson said through his lawyer that he was assured his offending remarks would not be broadcast in Germany but only in Sweden, where there is no law against Holocaust denial.

Prosecutors had received a letter from the Swedish television producers in which they denied offering any assurance to Williamson that the interview, conducted in English, would be broadcast in Sweden only.

Even I know that you have to get promises like that in writing. I mean, come on!

My reaction to the prosecution of Bishop Williamson is pretty much the same as my reaction was when David Irving was put on trial for Holocaust denial nearly four years ago, when I described Austria’s prosecution as “stomping free speech flat.” From my perspective, it looks as as though Germany wants to stomp it even flatter still, perhaps seeing if it can reduce its thinness to subatomic dimensions.

What prosecutors in Germany appear not to realize is that not only are laws against Holocaust denial an offense against free speech, but they just don’t work. They suppress nothing. As I pointed out nearly four years ago, David Irving got far more publicity in Austria over the few months after his arrest and during his trial than he had gotten in the prior six years. Before, having been utterly discredited as a “historian” after having lost his libel action against Holocaust scholar Professor Deobrah Lipstadt, Irving had been fading into well-deserved obscurity–exactly where he belonged. During the trial he became a martyr for the far right, all wrapped in the mantle of “free speech.”

The argument of apologists for such laws notwithstanding, criminalizing Holocaust denial serves no purpose other than to “stomp free speech flat” and to confirm the claims of the Holocaust deniers that the government is “afraid” of their message. It is true that Germany’s and Austria’s shared histories of the last 76 years lead them to understand far more than we in the United States do just what can happen when fascist ideology takes hold of the reins of power. I’ll even concede that laws banning Nazi-ism, the symbols of Nazi-ism, and Holocaust denial were not at all unreasonable in the immediate aftermath of Germany’s defeat in World War II. West Germany and Austria were fledgling democracies, and there were a lot of former Nazi Party members left living there. There was also a real fear that fascism might rise again, given that the nation was still shattered. Unfortunately, what should have been a temporary measure to help stabilize a defeated nation with most of its major cities reduced to rubble and twelve million homeless and hunger running rampant has become permanent. More than 64 years after Germany’s defeat, these laws still stand, and hapless and vile idiots are still prosecuted under them. Why do these nations still need these laws, which have produced on occasion produced miscarriages of justice that would be hilarious if they weren’t so tragic? After nearly three generations, isn’t it time for these affronts to free speech to be eliminated?

After all, free speech does not mean freedom of speech just for people whose views are within the “mainstream,” whatever that is. That is not freedom of speech. Rather, freedom of speech means protection for those who espouse views that are very unpopular. That includes even disgusting views that are quite rightly unpopular because they are so vile.

Views like those of Holocaust deniers. The way to fight Holocaust denial is not to criminalize Holocaust denial but to fight it with facts and to marginalize Holocaust deniers in society by not giving them any respect.

Bishop Williamson was treated appropriately when the Church demanded his recantation, and Argentina forced him to retreat back to England and, even more importantly, into well-deserved obscurity. He has been paid little mind by the world over the last nine months, and that is entirely appropriate. Even the Catholic Church appears to have more or less ignored him since last February or March. By prosecuting Williamson for Holocaust denial, Germany will not deter Holocaust deniers or limit Holocaust denial. In fact, if I were a Holocaust denier, I wouldn’t be able to envision a more effective way of promoting it than by outlawing it. Not only does it bestow on an odious belief set the appeal of being “so dangerous the government is afraid of it,” but it allows the even more odious little men and women who hold such views to don the mantle of free speech martyr.

I have a wonderful memory. Good for many things. But the images that the Newsreels showed as the War was ending are scenes I wished I could forget, those dreadful scenes in the death camps. They were black and white, thankfully not in colour.
Seeing those pictures I wonder how anyone can deny the truth

Yes, I am also troubled by laws restricting freedom of speech…it goes against my grain…and everything I have been taught about the U.S. Constitution.

I suppose it is all part of my liberal upbringing and not being brought up in post-war Germany.

I despise hate filled or veiled hate speech…but it is what we have to contend with, living the United States. And, allowing free speech no matter what its content, prevents the martyrdom of the haters.

Eric,
– You are confusing death camps with extermination camps.
– Those images were from neither death camps nor extermination camps.
– the bodies you remember from the newsreels were largely typhus victims
– The extermination camps were all close to, or in, Poland.
etc…

Eric has provided a perfect example of the reverse of the coin: sincerely held mythical beliefs about history, every bit as wrong as the holocaust deniers’ nonsense.

@ Vince Worldwind: I beg to differ with you…most of the camps whether you label them as concentration camps, extermination camps or forced labor camps were not “close to, or in, Poland..”

I suggest you visit this website:

Jewish Virtual Library-Holocaust-Concentration Camp Listing

You can also read about the ghettos and mobile gas units dispatched by the Nazis that traveled to captured Nazi territory to “handle the Jewish problem” as well as the “satellite” camps estimated at 15,000 in number…mostly destroyed by the Nazis before the allied invasion.

@ Eric: Yes I too remember the films shot at the camps, especially the newsreel of Eisenhower who forced Germans living in a nearby town in Germany to visit the carnage wrought by the Nazis.

“I despise hate filled or veiled hate speech…but it is what we have to contend with, living the United States.”

But Bishop Williamson doesn’t? He’s a Brit, was living in Argentina, and is being prosecuted in Germany for an offence committed in the EU (and, hence, under the European Arrest Warrant scheme, does not require dual criminality.)

Freedom of speech is more rigorously protected in the USA than in the rest of the World. Even places which have free speech protection of some sort.

Art 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights is a “qualified right” –

“The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

Lots more get outs there than “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.”

And, of course, the Bishop was giving that interview in Germany where, regardless of your local or national jurisdiction, most people would agree that German law applies (and either abide by it, or simply not go there if you find the law that offensive.)

“However, as much as I despise Holocaust denial, I value free speech, because it is the wellspring from which all of our other political freedoms flow.”

It is also the wellspring from which the Holocaust sprang.

Sorry, you’re wrong. You can’t have free speech because you’re not allowed to scream “I’m gonna kill you!!!” at someone, tell lies about your product when selling, say whatever you want in court under oath and so on.

And in the same way as you can’t say “I’m gonna kill the president” in the USA without heavies knocking at your door, you can’t incite hatred and violence.

Holocaust denial isn’t free speech. It’s lying.

We tend to have laws and social mores against lying.

The USA got rich and the keys to the damn planet and not one attack on their homeland.

Europe didn’t fare anywhere near as well.

And, realising that free speech has limits and that their culpability in the atrocity was due to their tolerance of others speech and that they were complicit in the acts by being ignorant of the truth, the German people have decided ABSOLUTELY AS THEY ARE ALLOWED TO DO FOR THEMSELVES that Holocaust denial WILL NOT BE ALLOWED.

Bollocks to free speech.

If I’m made happy by skinning women and eating their hearts, I AM NOT allowed to do it, despite the enshrined right to persue happiness.

“Lots more get outs there than “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.””

Hmm. So Free Speech zones aren’t a hole in that? What about conglomeration and control of media? Is that not a hole? How about offloading the censorship to an NGO, is that not a hole?

You usians have plenty of holes. Not in the wording of the constitution but because you don’t damn well follow it.

PS look at all the post-11/9 rhetoric when a NON INVASION on US soil was attempted. What the HELL do you think you and your lot would have done if, say, Russia invaded via Alaska and razed two-thirds of your country?

And in the same way as you can’t say “I’m gonna kill the president” in the USA without heavies knocking at your door, you can’t incite hatred and violence.

This is not true. In order to be illegal, the government has the burden of showing that it was an actual threat with the intent to act upon it. Your other examples are entirely irrelevant, where specific instances of lying can cause actual harm.

Yes, Holocaust denial is lying (or a symptom of willful self-delusion), but lying by itself is not and should not be illegal. Even lies that upset people. The Holocaust is part of history, and people make shit up about history all the time to suit their agenda. The only significant difference here is that this particular revision upsets more people. It is a shame that people are still so hateful as to promote this bullshit, but the mere act of having (or professing to have) a certain viewpoint is no rational grounds for punishment. To do otherwise is thought police — a government-enforced determination of which opinions its citizens can and cannot have.

Many people have and publicly promote views and opinions on politics, religion, and history that another (perhaps vastly larger) section of the population deems appalling. And under any free society, it’s just tough luck for them. To allow for the contrary is to promote a tyranny of the majority to regulate political/religious/historical opinions. That is a far worse result than allowing some idiots to speak their nonsense (it’s not like people with any brains are listening, anyway).

Hmm. So Free Speech zones aren’t a hole in that? What about conglomeration and control of media? Is that not a hole? How about offloading the censorship to an NGO, is that not a hole?

All of those are either content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions on speech, which are and should be perfectly legal as long as there is no real burden put on free speech, or something that does not implicate free speech at all. Media conglomeration? Seriously? Free speech is freedom from government regulation of content. It’s not about preventing the largest number of people or the people with the most money from shouting the loudest.

When emotional biases against how hateful and stupid Holocaust denial (or any other minority view deemed so by the majority) are set aside, this is an easy conclusion.

“Statements have been requested from authorities including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is charged with interpreting Finland’s international treaty obligations. Finland’s post-WWII peace treaty included a ban on fascist and paramilitary organisations. For this reasons, groups such as Lotta Svärd, a voluntary auxiliary paramilitary organisation for women, were disbanded.

The Foreign Ministry has not found a reason to forbid the registration of a national socialist party.

‘Nothing of a fascist nature was found. We tried to look at how the the organisation’s activities are written in its regulations,’ explains Päivi Kaukoranta, Director General of the Legal Services section of the Finnish Foreign Ministry.”

But it was not government agencies who stopped the organisation from becoming a legitimate political party here. It was the group themselves:

“The Finnish government agency in charge of party and political association registration said Wednesday it had terminated a neo-Nazi group’s bid to have itself registered.

The Board of Patents and Registration said the group had failed to meet a deadline to amend its application.
The agency had asked the group, which calls itself the National Socialist Finnish Workers’ party, to explain its ideological foundations.

I find it quite ironic that some of the comments here talk about “despising” so called hate speech. Is to despise something not to hate it? Are you not also guilty of hating someone for what he/she is? Ah, delicious irony.

Hate crime laws are in fact thoughtcrime laws. Hate is an emotion. Emotions are inseperable from thoughts, except of course for a psychopath. To question the historicity of the jewish holocaust is not a hate crime, it is thoughtcrime.

You lot are surrounded by a vast tapestry of lies, upon which you gorge yourselves.

The americans think that the european focus on antisemitism and nazi hate is a little quaint and overboard. The europeans, no doubt, think that Americans getting all upset when someone uses the word “Nigger” is similarly overboard.

“This is not true. In order to be illegal, the government has the burden of showing that it was an actual threat with the intent to act upon it”

However, people have been arrested and detained for wearing an anti-Republican T-shirt to a GOP rally.

“but lying by itself is not and should not be illegal”

And it isn’t.

But you still have laws against lying about a product you sell, lying in front of Congress or lying about your tax returns.

Oh, and non-lying is also criminal. Ask Bradley Manning or Julian Assange.

“The only significant difference here is that this particular revision upsets more people.”

No, the revisionism is so as to allow the holocaust to happen again.

“To allow for the contrary is to promote a tyranny of the majority to regulate political/religious/historical opinions.”

No, to allow it would be to refuse dogma-related lies that enable hatred. The facts don’t change if it’s a majority or a minority that believes in it.

“That is a far worse result than allowing some idiots to speak their nonsense ”

No, I think it’s far worse to have killed 56 million people just so some idiot could go on and on about how the Jews were the result of the subjugation of the True German Peoples. You know, that world war thingy.

Or do you think that living under a german democracy that has hate-speech laws is worse than living under Nazi rule where millions were killed by the numbers?

Weird.

“All of those are either content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions on speech”

No, they’re controls that ensure that nobody notices a protest. To see the opposite, read up on the Barbra Streisand Effect.

You can HAVE your freedom of speech, as long as you’re not heard.

“What’s the point of a telephone call, Mr Anderson, when you have no mouth with which to speak?”

Hmm?

“as long as there is no real burden put on free speech”

Well, there IS a real burden put on free speech. You’re allowed to say what you like as long as nobody hears.

“When emotional biases against how hateful and stupid Holocaust denial are set aside, this is an easy conclusion.”

Problem: you’re using your emotional bias for the American Exceptionalism of your so-called free speech laws to blind you to the facts of Holocaust denial. When you drop those emotional blinkers, the problem is easy to spot.

I am all for free speech = my concern is that there is so much free speech denying the holocaust that in Britian (maybe other parts of Europe as well?) they are considering changing the public school curriculum to remove the holocaust from studies as the muslim population is so high and, of course, the muslims are damn sure there was no holocaust! How do you balance free speech with denial on a massive scale – so massive it could actually change the educational system……….. Just askin

I am all for free speech even if it’s vile but my concern is that there is so much of this holocaust denial that in Britain (maybe other places in Europe?) there is talk of changing the public school curriculum as the muslim population is so high and of course the muslim population is damn sure there was no holocaust. How do you balance absolute freedom of speech with the power of lies to change what children are taught and to effectively deny the genocide of six million people? Just askin

Boy I cant WAIT until the day where I don’t have to see us forced to swallow this 6 million myth.

“See, you’d think that after many months of posting this at least one revisionist who isn’t a neo-Nazi or anti-Semite would have come forward and said “Here I am!” But, no. It appears that there just aren’t any such revisionists around.”

Maybe that is because once someone does some research and finds out this is a myth and Hitler/NSDAP/Germany weren’t the monsters that the Jewish propaganda machine portrays they are disgusted with a large majority of Jews who protect this myth (albeit for their nefarious gains of sympathy ). When you discover this truth you are automatically an anti-semite and neo-nazi because you ask question about history. Asking questions like these:

When you discover this truth you are automatically an anti-semite and neo-nazi because you ask question about history.

So, in your view, you are being unfairly tarred with the label “anti-Semite” … just because you have “discovered” a massive Jewish Conspiracy that the majority of Jews are in on for “nefarious gains”? Sorry, but surely you can see how that “defense” sounds like this guy’s rant that people who believe the government has implanted them with microchips to control and monitor them aren’t having paranoid schizophrenic delusions; instead US intelligence agencies have tailored the definition of “paranoid schizophrenia” specifically to cover up the symptoms of microchip implantation! Or perhaps more acutely, like the “birthers” who claim that they aren’t racist, no way! They just find it far more plausible that some random dude on the Internet who’s claiming to present Obama’s “Kenyan birth certificate” is a more credible source of information than the director of the Hawaii State Department of Health who says Obama’s real birth certificate is on file in his birth state of Hawaii. In each case, the claim is “I’m not an X! I just hold belief Y, which any ordinary person would find extremely hard to swallow but which an X would be predisposed to believe is true!” and what an outside observer is likely to think is “oh, yeah, this guy’s an X, whether or not he knows it.”

So, in your view, you are being unfairly tarred with the label “anti-Semite” … just because you have “discovered” a massive Jewish Conspiracy that the majority of Jews are in on for “nefarious gains”?

No, no, it’s the same routine one may hear deployed by Nation of Islam pamphleteers — the term has been coopted by teh Joos. That’s what them joobers do. (NOI also has some weird etymology in which “semite” derives from “semi” or something, but it’s been a while.)

Funny, how we just chased a HIV denialist whose links are to rense.com off another blog…and up pops Necromancer “Mike” to resurrect this Holocaust denial blog.

Hmm, let me make a wild guess. This holocaust denialist is further to the right than Attila the Hun. He probably lives in a walled “compound” somewhere in the wilderness and has huge stores of food, guns and ammo…for the time when those damn Joos take over the U.S of A.

For example, the author of this Jew-spew claims that Holocaust denial is a “conspiracy theory.” Actually, the Holocaust™ story itself is the conspiracy theory, on par with Alien Abductions. Look, Jews even produced a movie about the so-called “final solution” called “Conspiracy”. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266425/

It turns out that the “final solution” was the Jewish plan to exterminate the Germans, not the other way around. American Jew, Theodore Kaufman, published a book in 1941 titled “Germany Must Perish!” in which he calls for the genocide of all German Gentiles in a “final solution”.http://www.ihr.org/books/kaufman/perish.html

Jew writes: “Of course, given the general behavior of revisionists, this lack of honesty isn’t surprising in the least.”

Revisionists are upstanding, honest, moral individuals who risk their very freedom to correct falsehoods. The general behavior of Holocaust™ Hucksters is lying, falsifying photographs, perjury, forgery, censorship, blackmail, and terrorism. Is that because they are confident they have the truth on their side? Only liars and criminals would have to resort to such vile behavior.

Consider which makes the most sense: (i) Holocaust is true. People run the risk of having their cars blown up (whilst they are inside), acid thrown at their faces, their jaws broken, their career ruined, languishing in jail for years, etc, to promote a lie. Governments and Jewish thugs overreact and go to all the trouble of prosecuting and attacking deniers, whom few would believe in any case since the evidence is incontrovertible. (ii) Holocaust is false. “Deniers” run the risk of assassination etc in order to correct falsehoods, inform others of the truth, and replace the current crooks in government with men of integrity. Hoax promoters prosper through being part of a multi-hundred billion dollar, multi-hundred billion mark racket that enables control of 90% of the world’s governments. Consequently, it is crucial that truth seekers not be allowed to debunk the hoax.

I’m amazed that some people don’t see the irony in using totalitarian censorship to restrict speech concerning… a regime that absolutely loved totalitarian censorship and restricting speech.

Is it due to a cynical view of humanity? That people can’t see idiotic rants for what they are, and disregard them? I’d like to think that we can. The best way to fight ignorance is through education, not suppression.